This world needs a hero, but he’s reluctant…

The Iron Princess by Barbara Hambly is a stand-alone fantasy novel, although the author has left the way open for a sequel and I would very much like to read one because I loved this story a lot.

Our main character is Clea who lives in a world that is changing – magic is going wrong for all the world’s mages except those of the Crystal Mages whose magic depends on a substance called adamine. Mysterious beasts have risen from nowhere and are destroying towns. Clea is unmagical and she needs a mage whose magic is untainted by the problems of her world so she travels to an alternate world to retrieve a wizard who has been imprisoned there for 75 years. Ithrazel the Cursed . Aided by a local shepherd, Hamo, she manages to free Ithrazel and they return to their own world, Hamo following them uninvited. While Ithrazel wants nothing to do with saving the world Clea is forming an alliance of workers, thieves and others to overcome both the monsters and those, like her father, whose power and wealth is based on adamine and the slavery used to mine it.

This is a rich world with interesting characters. Clea is a princess as well a thief, assassin and accomplished swordswoman. She is a fighter and a leader and has a difficult relationship with her father who imprisoned her at a very young age. Ithrazel deals with the guilt of his past actions that saw him sent to that alternate world and Hamo is in love with Clea, enough to leave his world behind to follow her, but we don’t know if it is really love and how long the feeling will last. We have magic, and reluctant heroes, political intrigue, and a plot that definitely keeps you guessing – things rarely turn out as you expect.

I loved the characters and the plot but I especially enjoyed the storytelling which sucked me in and made it very difficult indeed to put this book down. I have read most of this author’s books and I think that she is an underrated fantasy author – she has the gift of writing about people who seem very real despite the amazing predicaments she finds for them to encounter.